Models, what are you looking for in a business partner?

[pmd]

Hi all, I’m hoping to get some advice.

On sexyandfunny.com we post mostly affiliate content but we would like to feature more models through direct relationships. We’ve had success with modelcentro and their revenue sharing setup—not pulling affiliate profits from model payments.
We generally get at least 2,000 views on new posts and most posts end up with 10,000-20,000 views over the course of a few months. In the past we’ve been able to build websites with models that have been profitable for both parties.
So, here are a few questions that have come up again and again:

1. What’s the best working arrangement from a model’s perspective?
2. What’s the best way to get in touch and ask about working together?
3. Are there any preferred sites or programs that we can join that would make it easier to work with us?

If there's anything we missed or you just have general advice, we're happy to hear that too.

Thanks

 

[MarieElise]

I'm still kind of confused. What do you mean by working together, working together for what?

Are you saying you're an advertising site? So we give you content in exchange for clicks. @KingMarti what is this? I know you are knowledgeable and trustworthy in these matters. Just looking for a little more in depth break down, in layman's terms perhaps.

 

[pmd]

Thank you for asking. Yes, the general idea is content for clicks but part of what I'm asking is what would be the ideal situation from your perspective? What's your preferred way to get paid? We'd like to make the best offer we can in terms of fairness and compensation.

If you have affiliate links with revsharing, that would be great. We can also set up revenue sharing so that you make money from any subscriptions we sell.

 

[KingMarti]

I'm still kind of confused. What do you mean by working together, working together for what?

Are you saying you're an advertising site? So we give you content in exchange for clicks. @KingMarti what is this? I know you are knowledgeable and trustworthy in these matters. Just looking for a little more in depth break down, in layman's terms perhaps.

originally I understood right they are looking to buy photo sets that they can put on the site.

Not 100% sure on the working with models to make a site, but if they have worked with other models then they should be able to provide references to anyone looking to do that with them.. otherwise there's no point in mentioning that they worked with other models right?


After the newest post I have no idea what they are looking for, since it wouldn't make sense to pay someone for content and then also have that person making all the affiliate income, unless thats an either or type thing?

to answer the questions:

1. What’s the best working arrangement from a model’s perspective? Depends on what is being worked on
2. What’s the best way to get in touch and ask about working together? Twitter, forums, business emails
3. Are there any preferred sites or programs that we can join that would make it easier to work with us? No idea what you are actually asking about, like what affiliate programs you should work with?

 

[ArcticKitty]

Hello Sexy&Funny, I'm trying to understand your business model. Is it primarily affiliate marketing? If so, are you proposing to have links to content produced by independent models on your site for a percentage commission on sales generated?

 

[pmd]

Okay, I'll try to clear up some of the confusion. Yes, as Arctickitty said we are primarily interested in promoting links to content for a percentage commission on sales generated. Long-term, we'd like to work with models to create content that we sell and share commissions on as well. Probably the most successful case we've had so far was working with https://jenysmith.net/ to launch her site. We've made a lot of money together and it would be great to have more relationships like that. So:

1. If you're a model who makes money from subscription sales or other affiliate programs would you be interested in promoting your links and content on our site? And if not is there anything we can do to change that?
2. If you don't currently have an affiliate program would you be interested in joining one assuming we covered the cost of signing up and content creation (with the assumption that the content was something you were comfortable with)?

 

[Lilly_____]

I still don't understand what you guys do. How did you launch her site? You advertised it on your site? And how do you get traffic to your site in the first place and how much traffic is it? What's the advantage of giving a commission to you for advertising if I can just advertise myself on most social media, reddit , etc?

 

[KingMarti]

I still don't understand what you guys do. How did you launch her site? You advertised it on your site? And how do you get traffic to your site in the first place and how much traffic is it? What's the advantage of giving a commission to you for advertising if I can just advertise myself on most social media, reddit , etc?

Using fancentro you can get your own paysite set up really easily and it looks like they now have the option for an affiliate program.

So the traffic flow would be kind of like this: viewer ends up on s&f, clicks an image / ad of you -> Viewer is redirected to a landing page to convince them to sign up on your pay site -> member signs up and s&f get the 10-20% commision of the subscription or whatever % its set at.

The advantage of the advertising over reddit is basically additional advertising. They would essentially be a commission only sales team.

For a fancentro site, it's a great idea IMO. Unfortunatly no other platform gives models a way to set up their own affiliate program as far as I am aware, so you either have to build your own pay site, or use fancentro, since if they were to pomote something like MV or CB for you they wouldnt be able to get the commision and 99% of platforms dont even offer conversion tracking to be like "I'll pay the commisions manually" since you will never be able to see which sales came from S&F.

 

[ArcticKitty]

Okay, I'll try to clear up some of the confusion. Yes, as Arctickitty said we are primarily interested in promoting links to content for a percentage commission on sales generated. Long-term, we'd like to work with models to create content that we sell and share commissions on as well. Probably the most successful case we've had so far was working with https://jenysmith.net/ to launch her site. We've made a lot of money together and it would be great to have more relationships like that. So:

1. If you're a model who makes money from subscription sales or other affiliate programs would you be interested in promoting your links and content on our site? And if not is there anything we can do to change that?
2. If you don't currently have an affiliate program would you be interested in joining one assuming we covered the cost of signing up and content creation (with the assumption that the content was something you were comfortable with)?

Thank you, yes, I think I understand. I don't have a particular knowledge of affiliate marketing but what you are describing seems to have similar economics to that of an export agent or a tour operator (a travel agent that specialises in packaging planned vacations). Seems sensible to me.

 

[Dan Epstein]

There are so many moving parts and clicks here, not to mention mirrored and duplicate content.
Content sites need one basic condition, before they have traffic, style, or traded back-links, they need original content. Only then may they need an affiliate for reach and distribution, but 1st and utmost original content. The other real estate with banners and keywords stuffing are less interesting in a mobile 1st world. In each excessive click, there's a drop and a bounce.
I might not be a model, but @KingMarti would agree hopefully, that I know my shit when it comes to paid advertising and SEO

 

[ArcticKitty]

The thing is that from the content producer's perspective, yes, it's rational to work with an agent (affiliate if you prefer the term) to gain the incremental revenue. Especially given the digital nature of the product and the one time sunk production cost. I don't know the going rate for affiliate marketing of adult content but I saw King Marti's post above suggesting 10-20%. I'm thinking of literary agent's rates, SaaS commissions and subcontracting rates. A 80/20 split would seem reasonable to to me to start talking about doing business if I was creating content. Am I missing something?

 

[Dan Epstein]

The thing is that from the content producer's perspective, yes, it's rational to work with an agent (affiliate if you prefer the term) to gain the incremental revenue. Especially given the digital nature of the product and the one time sunk production cost. I don't know the going rate for affiliate marketing of adult content but I saw King Marti's post above suggesting 10-20%. I'm thinking of literary agent's rates, SaaS commissions and subcontracting rates. A 80/20 split would seem reasonable to to me to start talking about doing business if I was creating content. Am I missing something?

One of the best ways for content to be marketed is in distribution/partnership with other content. It's called brand collaboration or membership zone deals. Piggy backing on another brand. Think about Lacoste and National Geographic as a vanilla example. For example Adulttime, will have their paying users access selected full scenes from other brands like Yanks, or other niches. They get a better distribution, and their funneled clients are already paying members. That means less clicks from low revenue regions like Bangladesh, and a pre-filtering for customers with an actual payment method. They will also get membership deals or content sales deals within the membership zone. Streamate are early adaptors, and you can see them in many VOD websites as the live girls section. White labeled, but in conjunction with original content.
With that being said, good affiliates are essential, but definitely not a novelty.
Think about how many clones of the same tube are out there, and see why most of them don't move the needle.

 

[pmd]

I still don't understand what you guys do. How did you launch her site? You advertised it on your site? And how do you get traffic to your site in the first place and how much traffic is it? What's the advantage of giving a commission to you for advertising if I can just advertise myself on most social media, reddit , etc?

We launched https://jenysmith.net/ by posting sample images and videos and linking to her sign-up page. Each subscription means a payout for the referring site and for Jeny, who owns the site. Our favorite part of the affiliate program we used—https://modelcentro.com/—is that Jeny earns the same commission whether subscriptions come from visitors who go directly to her site or they come from us—we are paid by modelcentro, none of our profits come from Jeny's commissions. Plus she could promote her website through any other site. Modelcentro's commission structure is 10% off the top for "Payment Processing" with 25% of the remainder going to modelcentro and 75% of the remainder going to the model. It is the best payment structure we've found. That said, if a model is already working with an affiliate program or has another program they'd prefer, we have no problem going with that.

In terms of traffic, we average 500k visitors a month with 2,000-5,000 views on new posts and 10,000-20,000 views over a few weeks and some posts get tens of thousands of views over time. Our traffic comes from links with other sites, repeat visitors, and internet searches.

Ideally, we'd like to find models interested in producing content that we pay for. We would use that content on a subscription-based website that we promote on our site. So models would receive a payment up front and payments from any subscriptions. Plus, they would retain control of the site and the content produced.

So the reason someone would go with us over social media is that we are paying for the content and we offer the chance to earn more from subscriptions in the future.

I hope that wasn't too much detail but I also wanted to spell things out since I haven't done the best job of making things clear so far. Please let me know if there are other questions.

 

[KingMarti]

Ideally, we'd like to find models interested in producing content that we pay for. We would use that content on a subscription-based website that we promote on our site. So models would receive a payment up front and payments from any subscriptions. Plus, they would retain control of the site and the content produced.

This is where you lose me.
Let me know where I have this wrong because as I understand it I dont see how it would make sense.

1) You launch your own subscription site (not sure if you mean a single model or have a lot of different models on your 1 subscription site)
2) You pay models for content to put on that subscription site
3) You pay models the subscription fee (or maybe a part of it?)

I dont get how you would be earning from this which is my issue with it not making sense.

If you mean you want to compete with fancentro, what would be the benefits of going with you over fancentro? They have been around for a long time and have a lot of the bugs worked out.

 

[ArcticKitty]

So a model is in effect being offered a personal website and a set of advertisement links for 32.5% of sales?

 

[Dan Epstein]

There is too much confusion here.
If the content on the website is not exclusive, why would a horny paying customer (a rarity), subscribe to it and not interact with the model on the known and trusted market places, clip stores, and cam sites?

 

[LaceyRoyce]

If you want to buy content for a subscription site I think most models would just rather get paid like a flat fee that covers distribution rights.

There are plenty of C4s studios that do this already..

 

[ArcticKitty]

One of the best ways for content to be marketed is in distribution/partnership with other content. It's called brand collaboration or membership zone deals. Piggy backing on another brand. Think about Lacoste and National Geographic as a vanilla example. For example Adulttime, will have their paying users access selected full scenes from other brands like Yanks, or other niches. They get a better distribution, and their funneled clients are already paying members. That means less clicks from low revenue regions like Bangladesh, and a pre-filtering for customers with an actual payment method. They will also get membership deals or content sales deals within the membership zone. Streamate are early adaptors, and you can see them in many VOD websites as the live girls section. White labeled, but in conjunction with original content.
With that being said, good affiliates are essential, but definitely not a novelty.
Think about how many clones of the same tube are out there, and see why most of them don't move the needle.

Yes, that's what I've done with canvas print work and a B&B and a cafe on consignment in a scenic historic tourist destination town. It's not making any fortune but it works well all around, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Of course, the key is the value proposition (what the parties can do for each other) and character.

 

[pmd]

This is where you lose me.
Let me know where I have this wrong because as I understand it I dont see how it would make sense.

1) You launch your own subscription site (not sure if you mean a single model or have a lot of different models on your 1 subscription site)
2) You pay models for content to put on that subscription site
3) You pay models the subscription fee (or maybe a part of it?)

I dont get how you would be earning from this which is my issue with it not making sense.

If you mean you want to compete with fancentro, what would be the benefits of going with you over fancentro? They have been around for a long time and have a lot of the bugs worked out.

1. The subscription site would be on ModelCentro's platform (the same company that makes fancentro). It would be a single model because otherwise it's too much hassle to manage profit-sharing.
2. We would pay for content we think will do well. If the subscriptions are making money, they would have an incentive to make more content and if we're bringing in subscriptions, they would want to keep giving us promotional material. They have lifetime revshare programs so investing in new content that keeps people renewing their subscription makes sense for both parties.
3. The service itself pays the model (75% of 90% of gross earnings).

We would make money from subscriptions we referred.

We do not want to compete with fancentro, we are literally using their platform. We prefer the modelcentro side because it's easier to promote and aimed at websites.

 

[pmd]

So a model is in effect being offered a personal website and a set of advertisement links for 32.5% of sales?

The model is being offered an account on ModelCentro which pays 75% of 90% of all gross earnings. We're not doing web design, my point was that we will help them set up a ModelCentro account and then promote it. If they already have content then we can be done in an afternoon. Other websites could also promote their content with the same split in earnings.

 

[pmd]

There is too much confusion here.
If the content on the website is not exclusive, why would a horny paying customer (a rarity), subscribe to it and not interact with the model on the known and trusted market places, clip stores, and cam sites?

The content on their subscription website would be exclusive, we would be promoting it. The affiliate program we were suggesting is already accepting payments for a large percentage of the websites that are selling subscriptions. It's basically OnlyFans but older and focused on affiliate relationships.

 

[pmd]

If you want to buy content for a subscription site I think most models would just rather get paid like a flat fee that covers distribution rights.

There are plenty of C4s studios that do this already..

Okay, thank you, that makes sense.